Guide to Hogwarts
by Rumour of an Alchemist
Summary: Experimental piece - extracts from "Aquinas' Guide to Hogwarts". Supporting material for 'Saint Potter' universe.
1. The Founding

Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: The following is by way of an experimental attempt to nail down some details of geography and history of Hogwarts for the 'Saint Potter' alternate universe. See author notes for more on this, but some details will almost certainly differ from canon. This piece is rated 'T'.

Further Note: The piece is an account dictated in the late twentieth century by an 'in universe' character, who has their own views and agenda, and may be biased, guessing, or otherwise misleading on some points.

Revision (14th March, 2016): Minor rewording and expansion of text of this chapter.

* * *

_Extract From 'Aquinas' Guide to Hogwarts'_

Quite what possessed the four 'founders' – Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin – to establish a base of operations which was subsequently to become a school of magic in a remote Scottish glen is, due to the lack of credible historic sources on the matter, a topic for endless debate. The man that most sources tell us was the leader in this enterprise, Godric, was a west-country man from England, and so the decision to go quite so far from the lands in which he was commonly travelled – and had known from birth – at face value seems to make little sense. Although England was occasionally riven by struggles between the Anglo-Saxons and the Norsemen at the time, Scotland was itself hardly free from incidents – though given the way that muggles of the time generally avoided areas such as what has since become known as 'The Forbidden Forest' (itself considerably more extensive in that era), it is possible that the positioning of Hogwarts in what at the time was the midst of the forest may have offered a shield against most muggle intrusions. Another possibility is that the founders deliberately sought out the location with a view to trading with the centaurs in said forest for rare animal parts and plants that the centaurs had ready access to in the forest, and perhaps also with the merfolk of the lake. And then there are wilder theories, such as that Hogwarts was built close to or on the site of Rowena's home, and that she, being an enchantress of great wiles and subtle magic, _beguiled_ Godric into abandoning the lands that he knew to travel so far north to settle, for her own convenience. In the opinion of this author, such latter stories are sufficiently insulting to Godric's abilities as a wizard – and as a man who knew his own mind – as to be worth mentioning only to display their obvious ridiculousness. And then there are the crazy theories that the land which was in later centuries to come to be occupied by Hogsmeade was the site of a meteorite strike, and that the founders travelled all the way to Scotland to establish a fortress nearby for convenience of study of it (or due to more superstitious reasons pertaining to its presence)…

At any rate, whatever their reasons for choosing the site, the four founders travelled to Scotland and in the middle of the Forbidden Forest, on a narrow neck of land betwixt mountains and lake, raised their fortress.

And Hogwarts, at founding, _was_ a fortress. The keep, facing towards the heart of the forest, and the great hall 'sheltered' to the southwest in its 'lee', built with the aid of giants (either conscripted or in alliance with Godric, depending on which accounts you believe), was unquestionably first and foremost the seat of a warlord. It may have been that Godric meant merely to deter giving an impression of weakness to his new neighbours, which might lead to trouble, but the shifting staircases, capricious doors, hidden chambers, and shifting 'dead ends' of the original buildings are all features of a residence constructed for the purpose of giving the occupiers as much advantage as humanly possible to achieve over any invader, should battle ever arise. Indeed, during the first winter of construction at the site, an unsuccessful attack on the construction work was made by a militant faction of the centaurs of the forest and a number of creatures which they had either pressed into service or temporary allied with. This treacherous attack, made during the day of the Yule feast, when the centaurs hoped to catch the witches and wizards off their guard and making merry, was beaten off at bloody and terrible cost to the forces of the forest, whose plan was not, due to the superbness of Godric's spymaster, the surprise that they had hoped it to be. It was not to be the last attack upon Hogwarts by enemies, least of all from those living normally within the surrounding forest, but as it subsequently turned out it was sufficient to guarantee peaceful co-existence with the forest-dwellers for the rest of the duration of the original four founders' occupation of the site. (Perhaps Godric's hurried expansion of his planned works to include an additional tower abutting the northwest side of the keep, to serve as a barracks block for muggle mercenaries may have contributed too…)

* * *

Author Notes:

As of April 2014, I have been unable to find definitive information on several points of the history, geography, or location of canon Hogwarts - so have taken to reinventing canon or finding my own answers altogether, for the purposes of background of the 'Saint Potter' alternate universe.

In the 'Saint Potter' universe, Hogwarts is positioned close to the northeast 'toe' of Beinn Bheòil, and Loch Ericht is assumed to be much smaller and to constitute 'The Black Lake'. (Land which in the real world is otherwise occupied by Loch Ericht is assumed in the 'Saint Potter' universe to be for the greater part occupied by 'The Forbidden Forest', which also extends over most of the real world 'catchment' area of Loch Ericht, and also over the upper reaches of the nearby River Pattack.

By 1991, in the Saint Potter universe, Godric's original 'keep' has become for the most part staff &amp; guest accommodation, and the 'barracks' ended up becoming Ravenclaw Tower. Other parts were added to the school and/or adapted over the centuries.

Update: (24th April, 2014)

In the next instalment I take a line that the initial buildings were known as 'Godric's Keep'; the 'Hogwarts' name came later, after it had become a school.


	2. The Early Years

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: This piece is by way of an experimental attempt to nail down some details of geography and history of Hogwarts for the 'Saint Potter' alternate universe. Some details will almost certainly differ from canon. This piece is rated 'T'.

Further Note: The piece is an account dictated in the late twentieth century by an 'in universe' character, who has their own views and agenda, and may be biased, guessing, or otherwise misleading on some points. (Helga Hufflepuff comes in for the odd jab in this instalment, as the 'in universe' writer has some 'issues' regarding her...)

* * *

_Extracts from 'Aquinas' Guide to Hogwarts'_

Much of the early thinking going on around Godric's Keep, as the castle was initially known, appears to have in fact been shaped by the agenda of Helga Hufflepuff. She was a widely travelled witch for her era, having gone as far afield as Constantinople in the years before the founding, in which latter place she spent several years soaking up the atmosphere of one of the great cultural centres of the day. A thousand years on, there are still legends in circulation in that region about a 'madwoman from abroad' (whose description is often suspiciously similar to that of Helga) who on a semi-regular basis drank members of the Varangian guard under the table in their earliest days in that city. When not carousing, Helga was busy frequenting Constantinople's libraries, having many manuscripts copied to take back to Britain for her dear friend Rowena. And of course, she was always enquiring about and taking notes of other aspects of the city's life. The truly fanciful might even imagine that the system of houses of Hogwarts – to only one of which a pupil might belong – in some way mirrored or was inspired by the Byzantine capital's system of guilds, extant during Helga's stay there, and it is certain that seeing quite so many peoples in quite so many countries must have impacted her thinking and perhaps led to her (at times naïve) willingness to engage with almost anyone.

Yet the houses of Hogwarts and other consequences of some of Helga's ways of thinking were as yet a way off in the future; the most significant effect Helga was to have upon the early years around 'Godric's Keep' (besides her very many contributions to Rowena's book and scroll collections) was in the very nature of the castle being a _stone_ fortress. Wood and earth were materials much easier and faster (especially for a witch or wizard) to work with and raise structures from. Indeed, across Britain, with the exception of the odd religious edifice, raised to serve muggle religious purposes, very few noteworthy stone edifices had been erected since Roman times; but Helga had been to The Orient, and seen Constantinople with its myriad of buildings and great walls. Only stone (or brick, in a pinch) would be good enough for her.

In this, at least, later centuries were to prove Helga wise. It meant extra headaches for Godric and Salazar, though, actually overseeing the task of construction, since for various reasons the immediately available local stone was deemed 'inferior quality' and in the end granite had to be sourced from a quarry some miles remote out on the edge of the Moor of Rannoch. Shipping the granite required the cutting of a track too, through the intervening stretch of forest, which no doubt contributed to the ill will of the forest's dwellers which was to culminate in and express itself in the attack of that first winter of construction.

(As an aside, it should be noted that once Helga had made it clear that only stone would do, both Godric and Salazar scoffed at the notion of _transfiguring_ stone to use in the works. Transfigured stone could be easily restored to its original shape and form or changed into another altogether by any moderately competent witch or wizard, and if there was going to be a _stone_ castle, then Godric and Salazar were going to 'do it properly' and use something naturally resistant to attempts to turn it into a pile of, say, slush. And whilst it is unclear if they understood the reasons that make granite so difficult to magically alter (its tightly interlocking structure of multiple crystals of different sizes, shapes, and types) they must surely have known from practical experimentation just how difficult granite is for a witch or wizard to reshape by any means other than that of sheer brute force.)

* * *

A good deal of the handiwork of Godric, Salazar, and their giant building crew is of course still available to view in Hogwarts today, to the visitor able to gain access to the castle, or at least to its grounds. It has withstood the storms of time and battle (and of occasional siege warfare). Here and there the odd statue may have lost a face, or a crenellation been replaced, and various buildings may have been added on by later builders (some more successfully than others) but the core of the castle is essentially still the same, give or take the odd internal refurbishment or repurposing.

* * *

With the keep, hall, and barracks tower completed, and with Godric's giants dismissed (for now), to return to their homes, the founders lived in peace for a number of years, alongside their (occasionally rowdy) bodyguards (Helga, perhaps harking back to her days in Constantinople, had rounded up some Norse mercenaries to serve in that capacity), before the first sign of trouble was to rear its head. The fame of two witches and two wizards who had built themselves a fortress in Northern Britain (and who moreover had a sizeable and diverse collection of written materials, likely greater than anything seen in the country since the days of Merlin) had naturally spread, as had word of their great learning.

And so, inevitably, the first wizard, desiring to prostrate himself to learn at the feet of four such great sages showed up. The age of the school was about to begin.

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Author Notes:

If this instalment jumps around a bit between some sections, my excuse for that is that in the 'Guide' from which these are putative extracts, there would be long sections of material drawing the reader's attention to the particular pattern of the vaulting of the ceiling of the hall, and the possible astronomical connections and magical significance of particular measurements of lengths of the ribs and the degrees of curvature... Things which a guidebook would naturally mention for the sightseer, but which I have no intention to write. (That's my excuse, anyway, for not having one continuous smooth flow of narrative.)

* * *

Some mentions here, regarding information I've extracted from Wikipedia:

1) As far as I can determine from Wikipedia, although Varangians arrived in Constantinople in 980 AD, the actual guard was not formed until 988 AD.

2) Constantinople had a well-established system of guilds by the tenth century. Membership of one guild was prohibitive of membership of any others.

3) With the exception of churches, Anglo-Saxon buildings tended to be built from timber, with stone only ever used for foundations.

* * *

On to other stuff. There is no indication in canon, as of April 2014, of Helga Hufflepuff having ever travelled, least of all to Constantinople. It seemed to me that at least _one_ of the founders must have travelled abroad however (otherwise where did the idea of a stone castle come from when everything else, bar the odd muggle religious building, going up in Britain for centuries has been timber?) and I went with Helga. Initially, it was in the interests of putting a character in the spotlight who gets little attention in canon (as of April 2014, she has the shortest Harry Potter wiki entry), but it later occurred to me that her 'open mindedness' might actually fit with a person who _had_ travelled a bit in her time. And during the tenth century, Constantinople was one of *the* major centres of European learning and culture.

The comments regarding granite are as far as I know non-canonical. For the Saint Potter universe, I'm going to be operating on the basis that some transfigurations are more complicated than others, depending on the target material's 'natural' state, and that lots and lots of different types of crystals packed very tightly together are a major headache for even a master or mistress of the art.

As an aside, the notion of Godric and Salazar as building site foremen, with their crew of giants, being bossed around by Helga Hufflepuff entertained me...


	3. The First Apprentice

Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: This piece is by way of an experimental attempt to nail down some details of geography and history of Hogwarts for the 'Saint Potter' alternate universe. Some details will almost certainly differ from canon. This piece is rated 'T'.

Further Note: The piece is an account dictated in the late twentieth century by an 'in universe' character, who has their own views and agenda, and may be biased, guessing, or otherwise misleading on some points. (The 'in universe' writer has some 'issues' regarding Helga Hufflepuff, for example...)

* * *

_Extract from 'Aquinas' Guide to Hogwarts'_

History _does_ record the name of the first wizard to successfully present himself before Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Helga Hufflepuff: it was 'Adam of York' (or 'of Jórvík', as York was known then). It does not indicate the date or time that the meeting took place (the closest source to the time of the founders detailing the event that the writer has ever personally traced was a tapestry depicting it dating back to the late fourteenth century, which hung in the Hufflepuff common room when the writer was at school, and which strongly suggested Adam turned up during breakfast one spring morning). There are no accounts of how many witches or wizards may have (unsuccessfully) presented themselves in the hopes of gaining an apprenticeship or some other arrangement, _before_ Adam of York arrived, nor whether the founders were united in decision regarding Adam. The tapestry in the Hufflepuff common room shows the would-be pupil prostrating himself specifically before Helga, whilst the other founders look on with a variety of expressions on their faces, and with a pile of cloth and silver coins spread at Helga's feet. Whether the tapestry's creator was romanticising the subject matter or accurately drawing upon oral traditions or written accounts of the event, since lost to the centuries, is itself a matter of speculation for modern historians. However, it seems credible to the writer of this guide that of the four founders Helga would be the easiest to sway. She had been to Constantinople, and acquired all sorts of ideas there. Whilst almost certainly she can have been no fool, with the ideas and fashions that she no doubt picked up during her travels, she might well have been the most susceptible of the founders to shameless flattery and fine gifts. Certainly there was no _need_ for the founders to take on any kind of apprentices or students – by this point they had been established in the area for some years, and they had their studies to occupy them (and indeed in several cases, by now, families). There were _children_ of their own to whom the founders could some day hand on any traditions or projects.

Nevertheless, irrespective of which or how many of the founders decided to take him on, 'Adam of York' was successful in his petition to become an apprentice and study under Godric, Salazar, Rowena, and Helga. He became part of the castle furniture, slightly less useful, no doubt, than the Norse mercenaries in many things (who Godric was by now taking a particular interest in, even going so far as to adopt as his own, the son of a warrior killed during some sort of brawl with a troll – this boy was the 'Aelfric' who was to be such a source of trouble in later years).

And where one had succeeded, it became inevitable, as word got about, that yet more would follow…

* * *

Author Notes:

As will be apparent by now, with this account of the history of the Hogwarts of the Saint Potter universe, I'm taking a line that the founders didn't originally _intend_ (excepting maybe Helga) to open a school. It was something that they almost stumbled into. For the record I envision 'Adam of York' as being seventeen or eighteen when he arrived at what was still (at that point) known as 'Godric's Keep'; he knew maybe the very basics of magic but wanted to learn from people with reputations for being powerful and very learned in the arts. The gradual slide into the school started with the arrival of young adults - children attending for tuition came later.

* * *

As of May, 2014, the Wikipedia articles on 'York' and 'Scandinavian York' inform me that 'Jórvík' was name of the capital (and also of the actual realm) of a Norse kingdom in England that lasted from 866 AD to 954 AD. The name 'Jórvík' stuck to the city for some time after that though, gradually changing in the years after the Norman conquest (1066 AD) to the current name, 'York'.

* * *

As of May, 2014, I have no information on who the 'first student' at canon Hogwarts may have been, and Adam of York is a figure who I have (to the best of my knowledge) invented.

Godric Gryffindor 'adopting' the son of a Norseman who died in his service is also (to the best of my knowledge) my own invention. It is certainly non-canonical, as of May, 2014.


	4. More Apprentices & Codex Aelfric

Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: This piece is by way of an experimental attempt to nail down some details of geography and history of Hogwarts for the 'Saint Potter' alternate universe. Some details will almost certainly differ from canon. This piece is rated 'T'.

Further Note: The piece is an account dictated in the late twentieth century by an 'in universe' character, who has their own views and agenda, and may be biased, guessing, or otherwise misleading on some points. This chapter also sees the 'in universe' character make frequent references to a 'source document', the_ Codex Aelfric_, which was itself written by a person, 'in universe', with an axe to grind.

* * *

_Extract from 'Aquinas' Guide to Hogwarts'_

At this point, a source of some controversy intrudes itself into the considerations of any serious historian attempting to assemble a picture of events occurring in the lifetimes of the founders. Although its author was indisputably prejudiced against two of the founders by the time that he (retrospectively) penned much of it, the _Codex Aelfric_ is just as indisputably the oldest written account known to depict the period at Godric's Keep that runs from the arrival of Adam of York up until the departure of the codex's author, a couple of decades or so later. The author himself was writing about the time and place in which he lived – that much no genuine historian will dispute. What is contested however, is just how much Aelfric shades – or outright fabricates – the characters and events which he shows. The codex's author certainly has a great deal to say about the arrival of further apprentices after Adam of York, and the eventual transition to a school.

Picking between the multifarious vociferous rants and poisonous comments of the author of the codex regarding the two great female founders, a diligent historian can disentangle the specific explanation which Aelfric has for why there was soon an increase in the number of apprentices at the keep: Rowena wanted them.

Rowena Ravenclaw, with her questing mind, wanted them to assist in her projects and research – and, so Aelfric suggests, to frequently _be_ the material of her experiments, as she tried to determine 'what?' magic was, and 'how?' it developed in an individual. Although Aelfric's gory accounts of how Rowena at times strapped young men and women to tables, and carved them up with a goblin-forged knife, seem unlikely – given that men and women still kept coming – the idea is not implausible that Rowena might have wanted to have large numbers of magic-capable young men and women to hand to study their talents; to have them to hand to study their talents and, moreover, to observe how those talents developed, as part of an investigation into the nature of magic.

But if Aelfric's assertions are at least in general outline correct and Rowena _did_ carry out any such investigations into the nature of magic (with or without the brutal surgical dissections that Aelfric alleges), sadly her personal thoughts and observations are long since lost to us. That Rowena required multiple 'specimens' for observational studies seems as likely a reason as any, however, for why there was an increase in the number of apprentices in the months and years following the arrival of Adam of York.

There were soon more apprentices around, indeed, than even Rowena could have had any reasonable requirement for at any given moment, and these were parcelled out, haphazardly, around the other founders for attention.

* * *

There are a multitude of oral stories and traditions concerning what and how the founders taught what amounted to the earliest students; for comparison it is interesting to read what the _Codex Aelfric_, coloured as it is by all the writer's own objectives and biases, has to say regarding the period leading up to the formalisation of the school. Aelfric, to translate him into an approximation of the modern tongue, asserts that Helga:'…taught only in exchange for fine words and flattery, and professions of slavish devotion and loyalty to her needs, and that which she did teach was generally for use in her service…' Meanwhile, Rowena: '…taught nothing save in circumstances where she could do it to achieve by her observations comparisons of how test-subjects learned as individuals; but what the Lady Ravenclaw taught was more likely to be hideously complex than anything else, that she might have the greater data for her studies by increasing the chances of failures…'

The image that Aelfric paints of Helga and Rowena are of a pair of cunning, proud, haughty women; in his depiction he allows them their intelligence, and their learning, since Aelfric is partly writing for an audience of his day, who may know something of Helga and Rowena from other sources and rumours, and partly because he has the endgame of his great concluding denouncement of the _Codex_ clearly in mind.

Aelfric is somewhat kinder to the two male founders and how they interacted with the apprentices: he says that his adoptive father, Godric '…being strong enough to be able to afford generosity, was much disposed to give good advice and wise counsel to those who sought his aid with respectful words…' and that Salazar (one of whose daughters Aelfric had a more-than-passing fancy for) '…was a prudent man who could be moved to give instruction by a particularly well-thought argument or an especially clever jest…'

The two male founders are thus cast by Aelfric as being wise and thoughtful, with good natures that are sometimes taken advantage of by those around them.

However, regardless of how far it is possible (or not) to take Aelfric at his literal written word in how he presents the founders as interacting on an instructional basis with the apprentices, there is one thing reading between his lines which is very clear regarding the founders and testimony to their capabilities as instructors: _Aelfric himself presumably learned at the least his 'letters' from them, and how to construct a narrative or argument, with which skills, at least in later life, he was to prove so damagingly effective_.

* * *

Author Notes:

As mentioned in the Author Notes of the previous chapter, with this account, I'm taking a line that (maybe with the exception of Helga) the founders didn't originally intend to set up a school of magic – it was something which they stumbled into doing.

This chapter was a bit fiddly to write, involving multiple points of view: what actually happened, what Aelfric says happened, and what the 'in universe' author of _Guide to Hogwarts_ has to say. The reason for Aelfric's animosity to Helga and Rowena (and Aelfric's reason for writing the _Codex Aelfric_) will be covered in a later installment.

As the 'in universe' author of _Guide to Hogwarts_ notes, Aelfric is a highly biased source. It can be safely assumed that he is capable of distorting the facts or outright inventing things, in pursuit of his agenda.

When the 'in universe' author of _Guide to Hogwarts_ mentions the 'multitude of oral stories and traditions concerning what and how the founders taught', he assumes that the readers of his guide are already familiar with at least some of them, and thus feels no need to mention specifics. He considers that his 'in universe' readers might find it interesting to be shown snippets of what Aelfric had to say, for comparison, since these are things with which he thinks that they might not be familiar.

Note that in this account there is no Sorting Hat yet, nor school, properly speaking. Just increasing numbers of apprentices getting under the founders' feet and pestering them to teach them magic.


	5. Gryffindor Tower and Rowena's Garden

Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: This piece is by way of an experimental attempt to nail down some details of geography and history of Hogwarts for the 'Saint Potter' alternate universe. Some details will almost certainly differ from canon. This piece is rated 'T'.

Further Note: The piece is an account dictated in the late twentieth century by an 'in universe' character, who has their own views and agenda, and may be biased, guessing, or otherwise misleading on some points.

* * *

_Extract from 'Aquinas' Guide to Hogwarts'_

The rising number of apprentices brought about demands other than for the time and wisdom of the four founders, of course. All those (generally) young men and women required somewhere to lay their pallets, and to store changes of clothes and other personal possessions. And whilst one apprentice (Adam of York) had been relatively easy to tuck away somewhere and largely forget about, dozens were soon getting everywhere, getting underfoot, and generally creating an ill-tempered atmosphere with arguments about space. The situation was further compounded by the fact that romantic fixations or visiting relatives expected to have somewhere to be able to lay their heads – and this was in an era before Hogsmeade had even been thought of, and in the midst of lands some of whose residents were very much resentful of the castle (and anything to do with it) which had arrived in their midst. Visitors expected to be able to stay in the castle itself.

Godric ultimately surrendered to the needs of the situation and sent for the giants again. A further tower was added to the castle, this one abutting the southernmost corner of the hall (with the length of the hall between it and the founder's own apartments in the keep). Here, in this new tower, all the apprentices and their hangers-on were housed. This latest addition to the castle would with the passage of time become 'Gryffindor Tower', but at this point in the castle's history there was as yet no formal school or 'house' system, and the apprentices – although numbering in the dozens – were not so many that they (and their occasional visitors) could not all be comfortably accommodated together in one place.

Meanwhile, whilst the giants were handy, Rowena had Godric and Salazar and their crew create a walled garden, for the convenience of sheltering plants which Rowena considered it necessary to cultivate for her own research from some of the extremities of the Scottish climate. Besides the erection of the protective walls, the creation of this garden involved the bringing in of a good deal of high-quality loam; this latter must have been a considerable labour, given the awkwardness of transporting large volumes of highly friable material from a source likely much more remote than the Rannoch granite quarries. That the use of magic in said endeavour could have rendered the soil worthless for years for the growth of certain plants sensitive to lingering traces of magic was one further challenge with which the founders would have had to wrestle.

Work on tower and garden projects complete, Godric and Salazar were permitted to dismiss their giants again. No doubt there was some muttering on the part of the men as to why the ladies hadn't at least mentioned the _garden_ the previous time that they'd had the giants in, even if the need for such extensive additional guest accommodation on a permanent basis was _not_ something that could have been reasonably foreseen.

* * *

Author Notes: (updated 14th March, 2016)

'Pallet' is used in this chapter in the sense of a rough bed.

A walled garden isn't like to keep much of the snow of a Scottish winter out, but it should provide an enclosed space where the effects of wind (including of 'wind chill') are all but negated.

For the purposes of this universe, I'm assuming that active magic or 'after traces' of magic in an environment can impact the properties, as potion ingredients or otherwise, of any plants grown there.

Nearly there as far as the earliest days of a formal school are concerned.

Update, 14th March, 2016: As one early reviewer has reminded me, a walled garden also offers protection to the enclosed plants from at least the larger representative member species of any local wildlife (whether fantastic, such as unicorns, or more mundane, such as deer) which might otherwise attempt to browse upon them.


End file.
